Last week Cam Beck wrote about the Myth of Brand Engagement, which he sees as the last thing your audience really wants. He starts with the strong claim that "The sad news is that your company's brand isn't nearly as important to your audience as it is to you." But, then he backs off and says that brand engagement is "...important, and it can be done". What's the real story?

This is an age of smaller budgets and greater expectations. So great that I routinely hear clients talk as if some new marketing program or initiative will save their company. Is this possible?

A hologram contains every piece of image information in every piece of the hologram. Are you trying to do the same thing with your marketing?

In our business, we frequently meet people who feel that their company or product brand doesn't fit them. Sometimes the brand used to fit, and sometimes it never did. Bad brands are almost always the result of failing to spend a small amount of money at the beginning. And, now they are facing spending much more money to correct the problems. The question is, what risks are present in re-branding?

Marketing is usually perceived as an add-on to B2B companies. In reality, it should form the core.

Good marketing and branding challenges, pushes, and cajoles companies into action and growth. And this is why companies buy work in marketing and branding in the first place: they want to achieve growth. What most companies don't realize is that operating at this level is much harder than they thought.

With the talk lately on grading leads and/or prospects, the academic in me wonders something. Does lead grading lead to grade inflation? That is, do grades tend to creep upwards in response to outside pressures?

Over on his blog, Todd Miechiels wrote an interesting post questioning whether b2b branding is relevant anymore. He says that micro-brands and one-to-one communication make brands unimportant.